I am happy to announce our newest development, Sweeps Tasks.

Sweeps Tasks cost effectively outsources chores while generating jobs to worthy Sweepers.

Task Ideas

Our tasks are limited only by your creativity.  Some of the tasks we can do:

Local

Errands, groceries, pickup/dropoff, dog walks, delivery, assembly, shopping, notes, goodwill dropoff, dry cleaning, laundry, returns, gifts,

Virtual

Vacation research, online shopping, Facebook pages, holiday shopping,

Simple Process

1. Post a task and name your price:

Tell us what you need done, by when,  where, and how much you want to pay.

2. Task gets done

Our verified Sweepers compete to claim your task.  Once your task is claimed, we’ll notify you and get to work.

3.Pay and Review

Pay only when your task is complete and you’re fully satisfied.

WWW.SWEEPS.JOBS

We recently acquired www.sweeps.jobs and www.sweepsjobs.com, and forwarding them  to our older www.sweepsllc.com for the time being.  Our email addresses have also switched to the .jobs domain.  What do you think of the new domains?

New and improved systems

We’ve been hard at work deciding on, and implementing the best software to run Sweeps.  We overhauled all our old systems over the past few months, creating quite a bit of turmoil.  We apologize for any confusion or problems while we figure out how to work our new stuff, but hopefully have the worst behind us.  We’re confident the new processes are an improvement and will allow us to grow far more efficiently and save substantial time.

Move

I have finally settled into Ryan Allis’ Entrepreneur home.  Ryan runs Icontact (www.iContact.com) and is a well-known social entrepreneur in the Triangle (www.zeromillion.com), and it will be a pleasure to learn from him and the other entrepreneurs in the house.

Hiring

We need students now.  If you are a student or recent graduate and need a job (or know of any students that do) let us know.

Software

If you’re interested, here are just a few of the new applications we use at Sweeps
Freshbooks (freshbooks.com): Our easy-to-use invoicing system

Batchbooks (batchbooks.com) : Social CRM which easily keeps track of customer histories and patterns

Flowr (theflowr.com): Groundbreaking collaboration tool.  Useful for any group

Outright (outright.com): Free yet powerful accounting system for small business

Onelogin (onelogin.com): easiest way to share passwohttp://sweepsllc.com/wp-admin/post-new.phprds

Evernote (evernote.com): remember everything

Get Satisfaction (getsatisfaction.com): coming soon, will gather customer feedback

All the google stuff: Analytics, apps for business, gmail, calendar, contacts, adwords, checkout, docs, voice, webmaster…All free and top-notch

Mailchimp (Mailchimp.com): easy to use email software

Shoeboxed (Shoeboxed.com): awesome tool to eliminate paper, based out of Durham

WordPress (wordpress.org):  blogging application

Wufoo (wufoo.com): impressive form software

We have been slammed recently, with seemingly everyone in Chapel Hill (including me) moving out last week.  It showed that we need to keep improving things on the management side, but we’ve got damn good workers.  Sweepers helped move, clean, paint, haul, weed, prune, and mow last week, all over the Triangle!

We’re proud to have helped new neighbors Nourish International move in next door.  We tore out the old University Photo interior, repainted it and moved all their stuff into the office right beside us at 133 1/2 E. Franklin St.

I love Nourish’s mission statement “to eradicate poverty by engaging students and empowering communities’.  They make a huge impact across the world, and with our other neighbor A Ban on Neglect providing jobs and homes in Ghana , we’ve got to keep up by acting locally.

Welcome to the first edition of our Sweeps Blog!

We’ll try to keep you updated with fresh Sweeps news and other good stuff, starting with how we got here.

Mary Lou & Morris, 2006

Mother and son Mary Lou and Morris Gelblum started Sweeps way back in 2004 when baby Morris was cleaning mom’s office every Sunday.  Our family had always used NC State students to help us around the house, many of whom we recommended to friends and family.  We often maintained close relationships with these students and hated to see them go, but there were always more needing work.  One weekend as Morris and Mary Lou cleaned up her office, it dawned on them that they could take off the rubber gloves, hand them to NC State students and start a business!

Sweeps was born soon after, with business plans and logos scribbled on napkins on the way to Wadesboro and the beach.  We started small and sent a few hundred brochures to friends and family, offering an affordable cleaning performed by students.  Sweeps was a hit, and we quickly realized running a business was a lot harder, and a lot more fun than we ever realized.  We somehow kept up as Mary Lou continued her therapy work and Morris left Broughton High School to be a Tar Heel in Chapel Hill.

We figured a few things out in the last few years, worked with a lot of outstanding customers, and created jobs for dozens of Raleigh students.  These students are the reason we’re still around, and its been a pleasure to help them succeed.  We hate to see our Sweepers move on, but we’re proud of all our alumni and are always excited to meet the next batch!

Stay tuned for Part 2, the New Sweeps!